Getting Kids To Do Their Homework

Welcome to Ausumness.

We are continuing on the subject of homework from last week, where we wrote about IEP's and how they can help, professionally diagnosed students limit homework and adjust in class work if necessary.  

We'll share some research we've found about homework and tackle those homework issues you may have at home.

There has been a lot of research done on the effectiveness of homework.  In a nutshell, homework for elementary aged students provides very little educational gains on average.  There are numbers are out there along with numerous reports on this.  As an educator, it saddens me that some educational experts are not taking this in.

My oldest son comes home, every single day with homework and has been since he's 6 years old.  This makes him extremely bitter towards school, which already is a terrible situation.  The shouting matches and tears were just one part of it.  As you may also experience in your autistic or ADHD kids, it can take ages to do one small assignment.

The kids are finally home after a long day of sitting behind a desk and now they have to sit behind the table and do even more work, despite their success and attainment of that knowledge in the class.  My youngest brings home mostly busy work and he also loathes homework.

I found a useful report on this study at Educational Leadership where they gave a synopsis of gathered information.  To put it simply, the older the child, the more gains they get by doing homework.  Although, those gains were still relatively minimal.  We are just generally speaking for the sake of keeping this short, but you can read the report for yourself.

If you are a parent who thinks homework is necessary, despite what research has proven, you can always have your kids read or do fun science projects and conduct your own homework routine.  Another point raised is homework as a means of teaching responsibility.  My response would be, use chores as a means to teach responsibility at home.  It makes sense to keep tasks that are relevant.  Educational responsibilities are kept mostly at school, while home responsibilities are kept there.

I found these guidelines from Educational Leadership to be very useful.

Research-Based Homework Guidelines

Research provides strong evidence that, when used appropriately, homework benefits student achievement. To make sure that homework is appropriate, teachers should follow these guidelines:

• Assign purposeful homework. Legitimate purposes for homework include introducing new content, practicing a skill or process that students can do independently but not fluently, elaborating on information that has been addressed in class to deepen students' knowledge, and providing opportunities for students to explore topics of their own interest.
• Design homework to maximize the chances that students will complete it. For example, ensure that homework is at the appropriate level of difficulty. Students should be able to complete homework assignments independently with relatively high success rates, but they should still find the assignments challenging enough to be interesting.
• Involve parents in appropriate ways (for example, as a sounding board to help students summarize what they learned from the homework) without requiring parents to act as teachers or to police students' homework completion.
• Carefully monitor the amount of homework assigned so that it is appropriate to students' age levels and does not take too much time away from other home activities.

If you're stuck like us, giving daily, mundane, homework assignments to kids who hate school to begin with, consider these techniques and tips:

-  Let the kids play for a half hour or so and unwind after school (if time permits).

-  Use a timer to keep them on task.  (We spoke explicitly about this in a previous blog.  Click here to read more about timers.  They can be very effective.)

-  We always say no TV or game time until your homework is finished.  (We also have a blog touching on this and provide you with a useful chart.  Click here.)

-  If you have an IEP, make sure that homework is a part of it.  This was a major help for us.

-  Sit with or around your kids while they do their homework.

-  Provide a treat of fruit and or cookies while they work. (This really helps me get them seated and started.)

-  Provide an area where homework is always to be done and make sure it has limited distractions.

-  Explain to the teacher, your at home experience and show them the research we shared here and remind them of the IEP.

-  As we always encourage our readers, stick to your guns!  It's so much easier for everyone when we stick with the routine and keep them black and white.  There is little room for arguing.

This is one hot topic and I suppose you could find convincing enough information out there depending on the side you choose to believe or go with, but this is the way we thought was most convincing and judging on our experience, it seems to be true, that homework has very little effect on educational gains with younger students and can even have a negative effect, at that.

We hope we've been of help and that you'll join us next week where we'll be talking about the power of hugs.

Best of luck!

How an Individualised Education Program Can Work For You

Welcome to AuSumness.

We realise how difficult it is to get condensed, easy to read, geared for a general population and possible solutions all wrapped up in one cohesive, short post.  That's our goal here at AuSumness. 

I've done a touch of research on IEP's (Individualised Educational Program) because we also use the Belgian version of this in connection to homework.  I'd like to bring to the table, the information I found on the necessity of homework according to research and provide tips on minimising stress due to homework, exams and lengthy assignments, which through an IEP can be configured.

Let's start off looking at what an IEP is. An Individualised Educational Plan is a plan or program developed to ensure that a person with a legally identified disability receives specialised instruction and related services.

That means that the person has to be professionally evaluated, eligibility needs to be decided by qualified professionals, a meeting is called with the IEP Team and sometimes with the parents and teachers.  Our team in Belgium, consists of the parents, the school's councillor, a governmental representative for our region and an Autism professional and mentor.  Services are then provided, progress is reported, the IEP is reviewed and the child is later reevaluated.

Some parents do not feel comfortable admitting to a disability.  I would hope that pride would not come before education.  Perhaps the thought of labelling someone is also stigmatic.  Carefully consider the true and I stress how important it is to be honest with ones self about being realistic in regards to the limitations of your children or students.  Do not allow expectation to cloud what is actually relevant.  This is a huge problem we face.

I'm thrilled to have an IEP for our kids.  Our youngest goes to a special Autism school because he's already been through the professional diagnosis and cannot attend a regular public school due to his disabilities.  Our oldest, also professionally identified can attend a regular public school.  However, it is very challenging and stressful for him. Homework, tests and lengthy assignments are a huge burden and bring on many symptoms of Autism.  Thanks to an IEP, not only can our child remain in a regular public school, but he can also get some help.

If you are certain that your child is intellectually capable of handling the basic educational academic syllabus and you really want them to remain in a regular public school, than an IEP might be just what you need to make that happen. 

The research I've done on homework has provided this basic outline:

Homework on an elementary level has proven to be ineffective.  However, homework given to older students, in their last few years of school has proven to be very effective.  That's it in a nut shell.

I have observed that much of the homework given my boys is just busy work.  As if the teacher is required to give them homework.  My youngest has been able to count to 100 before he could even start school, yet every week he comes home with a task of filling in missing numbers from 1-100.  Proving my point on homework just being busy work, at times.

My oldest can come home with hours of homework, doing drill after drill over an exercise that he fully understood and comprehended since the third problem.  After many tears, shouting matches and a hatred for school, we attended our next IEP meeting with the plan on minimising homework and we could do this because of the IEP.

We made an arrangement, begrudgingly with the juf/teacher to monitor his homework and when it was too much, to pull out the most difficult tasks and if he could do them successfully, he no longer needed to continue.  We also recommend, when administrating lengthy examinations, that they either give one sheet at a time or only part of the exam.  When handed a booklet of page after page of testing, our son would shut down before he even started, despite the fact that he could totally do the work.  Seriously, wouldn't this even be stressful for any kid?

Breaking down the work.  Concentrating the work.  Has been a huge help.  It is more work for the teachers and you will more than likely find it difficult to get them to work with you, but through an IEP, it is legally binding.  So stand your ground!  Fight for what you know is best for your child, not what is easiest for the teacher.

For teachers, I recommend the above steps as well as keeping an open mind.  As an educator it is detrimental to remain open minded and flexible.  It will be one hell of an example for your students to show them patience, kindness and an understanding that we are all very different and that some people require a different approach.  This is true intellectualism, which his what educators should embody.

Teaching kids with IEP's is not easy work.  However,  the instructor can also learn from the experience and apply that experience not only to another pupil with an IEP, but perhaps for a student without an IEP or even better still apply it to the class because you've seen it work.

We hope this edition has been helpful.  Feel free to share your stories in the comments.  Keep it sweet and simple as we have for you.

Next week, we'll take that homework research out of the nutshell and discuss ways to get your kids to get it finished.

The best of luck!